mermaldad’s Techdirt Profile

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Kudos to Mike for maintaining a good balance between explaining the subject episodes to those who had not listened to them and giving those who had listened a more in-depth look at the story. Mike's and Alex's comments solidified some impressions that I had while listening to the episodes, but had not yet put together. Good job!

While some may find the "making my family" image obscene, but I'd argue that the image of the "traditional" stick figure family is more obscene, because while "making my family" depicts a single sexual act, the traditional one implies three, no, seven sexual acts since every living creature depicted there is the result of sexual reproduction. Seven sexual acts is getting into porn movie territory.

In this episode, one of the topics covered was the benefits of a consumption-based tax system vs. our current income-based system. Dr. Frank proposed a tax code where consumption is measured by subtracting savings from income. I have heard other proposals for a VAT, which in theory does the same thing. In practice, however, I suspect that the subtraction approach would do more to promote saving since the cost of the tax on an annual basis would be more apparent every tax day, compared to the VAT in which the tax cost in spead through the year. I also imagine the tax avoidance strategies (legal and not-so-legal) would differ between the two. IANAE, so all of this is a layman's speculation.

This is not as tech-focused as most of Techdirt, but it might make a good future episode of the podcast.

One AC has suggested that the winery didn't do a search for the term "butterball", but my guess is that they may have done it deliberately. Going for a boost from someone else's trademark isn't unheard of, and as Tim points out, isn't illegal if there's no opportunity for consumer confusion.

If I were Butterball, I'd seriously consider if there's an opportunity to pair the turkey with the wine and give both brands a boost. A lawsuit just drains everyone's bank account (except the lawyers).

Now, spending a lot of money on a computer means getting a machine which is basically useful for playing shoot-em-up games.

...or doing 3D CAD, animation, video production, music production, bitcoin mining, machine learning, or simulate protein folding for medical research. The fact that many people don't do much with their machines beyond playing games doesn't mean the technology has reached diminishing returns.

I used to be dismissive of gamers until I realized that their pursuit of better frame rates and more realistic rendering had created a market that had outpaced the makers of scientific workstations costing ten times as much.

Perhaps an amendment should be made to this bill that would require a similar notice be posted in the workplaces of all copyright-enabled businesses (you know, like publishers, movie studios, and grocery stores) warning of the penalties associated with filing a false DMCA claim.

Just like the television show Star Trek , "This Week In Techdirt History" is a five year mission. Any longer than that, and it would necessarily be reruns, since everything from 5 to 20 years would (obviously) have already been covered.

No, it just goes recursive after that. I for one am looking forward to "This week in 'This week in Techdirt history' history" posts.

The idea of regulating free speech with a 1787 constitution is one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard.

Just think of the logic of using a 1787 constitution that was designed when we relied on hand-operated printing presses as the basis to regulate the most dynamic part of life in America. It’s not going to be good for consumers. It’s certainly not going to be good for innovation.

On top of the problems with her suit already mentioned, there's the question of whether publishing her real age violates her privacy or breaches any contract. I'd say her chances of any money are pretty slim.

While I agree with the OP about the inappropriateness of using trademark law to stifle speech, I have to say that the word "obnoxious" falls short of the mark here. Obnoxious was your little brother on a long car trip when you were ten. How about "reprehensible"?

Just peeked on Amazon, and while all of the 1.0 Keurig machines had 4 and 5 star ratings, the 2.0 machines are averaging about 2 stars. Looks like Keurig's customers aren't as loyal/stupid as Keurig thought.

Nope. The problem is that Excel converts the *value* of the cell to the numeric equivalent that represents the date, and also converts the cell format to Date. So if you format as text, you fix one problem, but not the other. "DEC1" becomes 41974, for example.

"Yeah, I was peeping through your window, and yes, I happened to see you naked, but I shouldn't be arrested for that because if I am arrested, I will have to think about what I saw (as part of my defense, of course) and you don't want me thinking about you naked, do you?"

"I think Dan Brown's books are very dangerous. The quantity of hours that people read these action novels. It becomes a reality of some sort, and that's a part of it. It really comes down to educating schools and parents. To say 'you know what, you can't read that, sorry, I'm just not going to let you do it'."

"His entire adult life has been dedicated to taking advantage of others, using his computer expertise to violate others' privacy, to embarrass others, to build his reputation on the backs of those less skilled than he,"

Funny how this quote could, with minor grammatical modifications, be applied to the "victim", AT&T...

My 2013 is so much better now that Bev has appeared in it. She never ceases to amuse me. Some of the other commenters seem to want to associate new terms with her name. However, I am confident that she would be able to do so without any outside help.